Dear Bernie: This is why you shouldn’t give up

I would like to ask you not to concede the Democratic Primary to Hillary Clinton. And, yes, I’m fully aware that you are, first and foremost, someone who passionately cares about this country. You’ve truly spent your entire adult life defending the poor, the voiceless, and the oppressed. Yes, I also know you don’t want Donald Trump to be POTUS. I also know that you are a team player, you’ve crossed the aisle in Congress more times than you can count, and you’re not one to hold a grudge. You always, always, have one eye firmly focused on the bigger picture and the greater good. When you say something, you mean it (for those who are unaccustomed to such behavior, it’s called, “integrity”). You make a promise and you keep it. You set your own political “course” decades ago and you’ve not veered off that path once, which has, more often than not, put you outside typical spheres of influence and outside the favor of (perceived) power brokers. You are a decent, kind, and genuine person. Yes, it’s widely reported that you have earned quite a bit of supposed “good faith” and potential sway within the Democratic Party and on its much-lauded “platform,” except on this last sentence, I’d beg to differ.

The harsh reality of the previous sentence is that, as you are surely well aware, the current incarnation of the Democratic Party has no good, and very little faith. They not only have rigged the system illegally and unscrupulously against your candidacy, but they’ve propped up a candidate in Hillary Clinton who literally stands for nothing. As you are almost certainly also aware, she will backtrack and flip (she already has begun to do so) on every promise and “stance” she feigned over this past year which was created simply to mimic your policy positions. She already has done an about-face on coal, and, again, as you surely must know, she will find a way to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). As one of the initial TPP supporters and architects of what Barack Obama envisions to be one of his signature “accomplishments,” there is almost zero chance that she will get his trade deal killed in Congress. Keep in mind that it was her husband who conned us with that gift that keeps on taking, which is NAFTA.

I too am sick of hearing about Clinton’s email problems, Bernie, except that they are, of course, a symptom of the type of person who continues to thumb their nose at “the rules.” Speaking of which, how about those Goldman Sachs transcripts? They are also a symptom of Clinton’s pathologically and historically bad judgement. Any future Clinton Administration has already been bought and paid for by Wall Street. And about that…

What does it say, or not say, about Elizabeth Warren and her supposed stance against Wall Street, that she hung you, Bernie, out to dry when you could have seriously used her support? Much like those who remain silent when witnessing atrocities and injustices, Warren’s deafening silence speaks volumes. And to me it screams, “fake.” No sooner did Barack Obama lead you out of the White House last week after your meeting than his pre-taped endorsement video of Clinton was released, and Elizabeth Warren was bizarrely giddy announcing her support of Hillary Clinton. Harry Reid, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, and practically every other elected Democratic leader was just as bad, if not worse, in that they not only remained silent during your campaign, but actively worked against your candidacy. Don’t even get me started on the media’s (especially NPR’s coverage) handling of your campaign. It was disgusting.

What I continue to read online is not only despondency but white-hot fury about what the Democratic Party has done to you. None of us, not a one, wants to vote for Hillary Clinton. It’s not that we don’t like her, or that we have grudges against her campaign for what they’ve done to you…it’s that we can all see that she is entirely untrustworthy, that she will cow-tow to corporate interests, that she will absolutely (further) tank the climate and sell out environmentalists at her earliest opportunity, and that America will accelerate its race to the bottom, with the only winners being the super rich.

In my wildest moment of naive optimism, I can see that there is not one worthy demographic in America which will emerge from a Clinton presidency better off than where they started. Yes, Donald Trump is a lunatic and unfit to be president. But we all deeply understand that Hillary Clinton may just be worst, if only because she knows how to work the system, how to be more subtle, how to spin the con (better than Trump), and how to wiggle out of responsibility.

I was at one of your Kentucky rallies, Bernie. I asked every single person I encountered if they could imagine voting for Hillary Clinton if you weren’t the Democratic candidate. I swear to you that not one person flinched when they said they could not vote for her.

At this point, I’d like to reprint something that one of my personal Facebook friends wrote about you:

“I am now an old disheartened man. Bernie, America’s best hope will not be the next President. (Unless a miracle of some sort happens) It hurts my soul and destroys my faith in the American voters. It also blackens my faith in our so-called democracy with all the rigging and cheating that it took for Hillary to steal this primary.

I’m pretty sure that the country will survive and maybe even take a few tiny steps forward on one or two of Bernie’s main programs. But the rich will still get richer. The middle class will still keep shrinking. The poor will get even poorer. Even more of our future generations will not get a higher education. Our arrogant leaders will, without a thought of our sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, continue to engage in the wars our military complex will dictate to them to fight for their monetary gains. I’m too old now to see an America our forefathers dreamed of. I’m just an old man who is so tired of the fight for the good life for all. I think I will just live my life now and try to stay out of the struggle for happiness and freedom for all. I don’t want to face the disappointment any more. Have lost my faith in others.”

I’m not trying to guilt you into anything, Bernie, but I have to say that I also find myself devastated. In addition to writing and posting over a year’s worth of stuff about you, I also did not receive a grant I spent months working on, and which I was definitely qualified for, from a foundation led by someone who contributed many millions of dollars to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. That funding was crucial because I have two kids’ college tuition to pay for. Apparently, I wrote too much about you and way too much against Clinton to be a grant recipient. That was a bitter and painful “pill,” for sure, and it’s why I started a GoFundMe campaign, which I hated to do which is why I hardly promote it, but I had to stand up for what I believed in, at all costs. And I’m far from alone. It’s not that you owe us anything, of course. We dared to hope, and it wasn’t even entirely about you, as a person (although I can’t find anyone, including myself, who doesn’t think you’re the bee’s knees), which compelled so many of us to stand by you. It was what you stood for, which is exactly what you were saying all along, right? See, we were listening! It was a real social movement and a different direction you wanted to take our country which spoke to millions of us, young, old, black, white, male, female.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not writing this letter to you, which you may very well never see, because I don’t know when to quit, or because I’m holding a grudge against those who waged war against your campaign, or because I don’t like Hillary Clinton, although there very well may be snippets of each of those things woven into my thought process. The reason I ask you, Bernie, to find a way to run as an independent, third party candidate, whatever’s possible, is that I can see with crystal clear certainty, what a Clinton presidency will look like, and it’s very, very bad. So bad that I think you should not quit your presidential campaign.

Now, you may be thinking that, “Well, I told the President I’d concede,” or, “If I stay in, I’ll ensure a Trump presidency,” but I beg you to remind yourself that a) you do not owe the Democratic Party, from top to bottom, one single thing. They have double-crossed and worked against you from the start. You very politely brought a knife to a gun fight. They will not honor, nor even pay lip service to, any, a-n-y “promise” they made to you, and b) if you break free from the stranglehold of this ridiculous two party “system,” and run independently, and it does not lead to your presidency and, somehow, leads to Trump winning, SO WHAT? I’m not being short-sighted or simplistic. Yes, he sounds racist and small-minded and like a petulant toddler, but there are checks and balances, and other branches of government, and Bernie, we are really and truly running out of time, as a species, to reverse the damage we’ve done to our planet. America stands as the root cause of most of that problem. In short, you are not answerable to the Democratic Party, and not only because you owe them nothing, but also because they have lied and cheated their way to a Clinton nomination, which, in my book, means it’s worth the paper it’s written on (read: nothing).

One year ago, I may have thought that Elizabeth Warren might some day run for president if you didn’t make it. Fast forward to this week, and I’m highly doubtful that, in the end, she’d be better than Clinton, or different than anybody else, for that matter.

Surely you’re familiar with Doug Flutie’s “Hail Mary” pass. Your candidacy started out as a sort of Hail Mary, right? Some time around December 2015, it all went into high gear and became less “moon shot,” and more reality. Yes, I know it was a pipe dream at the beginning, but it’s not the beginning any more. But it’s not the end, either, if you decide it’s not. It’s potentially just overtime. Okay, maybe double overtime. Maybe even a hockey shootout with just you up against Ovechkin, Gretzky, and Lemieux. Except what the spectators don’t realize is that you’re playing an entirely different game than all those other guys. You’re in the “Fight of the Century,” which is why you, too (and regardless of what comes next), are simply The Greatest.

Published by Schatzie's Earth Project

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2 comments

Dear Schatzie , your letter to Bernie touched me profoundly ! Thank you for writing this Truthful Master Piece ! I do still believe in the best of all possible outcomes : So much Good , done by Bernie leaves its Blueprint in the Invisible realm , where ultimately it will bring Fruit on the material plane ! because it is born from the highest Vision for the Good for all . The millions of Supporters will stand by Bernie ! I wrote a letter to Bernie on my FB page this morning ~and so have many more ! ~Truth ~ Compassion ~ and Integrity will win !
Blessings and Gratitude to Bernie Sanders ! ❤ Gratitude and Blessings to You Schatzie ❤